Sleeping with the Enemy: Google + Microsoft Office

As you might expect, this week's Google I/O conference has triggered a reevaluation of the search giant's many products and services, especially those that compete directly with Microsoft. And while Google didn't mention "Microsoft" almost at all, the word "Office" was bandied about quite a bit. What is Google up to here?

If you followed Google's keynote at IO on Wednesday, or at least read my competitive overview in Google I/O 2014: Android Takes the L, you know that the big focus of this year's show was Android's expansion into non-traditional devices. Yes, Android is a big part of Google's overall strategy, but it's only a part, and the firm of course has an amazing array of online services and even other (increasingly complementary) platforms like Chrome OS. And as someone who sees technology through a Microsoft lens, one of the things that really struck me during the I/O keynote was a brief but telling discussion about Google's office productivity offerings for individuals, education, and business.

I understand that the world is changing, but I've held onto to the notion that Microsoft Office is essentially unassailable. It has withstood any variety of paid and free challengers in the office productivity space since its gestation, and Microsoft has done a very credible job of adapting this most traditional of software to the modern services world in recent years. From my perspective as a professional writer and daily Office user, there's Office and then there's everything else.

Of course, that view requires one to be locked into a certain way of doing things or at least require some of the more advanced features that are only offered by Office. Really, this is the same argument that we're having about the supposed death of the PC: No, it's not going away, but an increasingly large part of the user base either doesn't need a PC or only needs a PC rarely because they can do what they need to do on simpler devices. With Office, it's that most people simply don't need professional office productivity software, or if they do, they only need it occasionally.

The business world skews things for both PCs and Office, of course. But the danger to Microsoft is that for a coming generation of office workers who are not used to Windows PCs and full Office, but are instead very much used to simpler devices and light office productivity services and mobile apps, the old rules are increasingly out of date. What you or I may think of as an absolute certainty—the versatility of Windows, perhaps, or the power of Office—is just not part of the discussion when it comes to this new generation weaned on Google services and Apple or, increasingly, Android-based devices.

For Google, the opportunity is obvious: Through the proliferation of its devices and services, it can make Office and Microsoft's other platforms less necessary. And it can do so while building its own office productivity solutions that will mature over time and ultimately offer the most popular features of Office. As with Apple, Google is finding its way into Microsoft's last bastion—businesses—simply through the popularity of its devices and (usually free) services.

For Microsoft, the goal is to adapt to a changing world. We know the firm is busy bringing its online services to all popular mobile platforms via apps, and is no longer pushing a "Windows first"—let alone "Windows only"—strategy. And a big part of that is Office: The number of Office and Office-related mobile apps available for iPhone, iPad and Android handsets and tablets has multiplied dramatically over the past year. Office for iPad is currently the crown jewel, but this product is coming to Android tablets soon too, of course.

To date they haven't been. Google Docs—which I'll use as the collective name for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, plus related mobile apps of the same names—offers basic office productivity functionality and the expected integration with Google Drive, the firm's cloud storage solution. But Microsoft Office compatibility has been an issue. When you open a Word document, say, in Google Docs, that document is converted to Google Docs for editing. And while you can later export it to Word format again, it will have lost much of the original formatting—not to mention key Word features like author comments—during all the round-tripping.

This PowerPoint presentation has mangled fonts and layout in Google's web viewer

For people who don't need Office compatibility, this isn't an issue. But in the education, government and business markets where Office compatibility is still an obvious requirement, that kind of behavior is unacceptable. So Google made some progress on its own and then in 2012 it purchased QuickOffice, which made a mobile productivity app suite that offered better Microsoft Office compatibility. At Google I/O earlier this month, the firm noted that QuickOffice-based compatibility updates were being added to the web-based Google Docs services as well as the mobile apps on both iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android (phones and tablets).

"One of the common use cases we run into in companies ... is that they run into [Microsoft] Office files," Google senior VP Sundar Pichai said during the keynote. "It's a very common experience for all of us. And we want to make sure as we bring Android for work, [Microsoft] Office work seamlessly ... Today we are announcing native [Microsoft] Office editing built within the Google Docs suite of editors."

To be clear, he means Google Docs on the web and in the iOS- and Android-based mobile apps. He means no more converting back and forth to Office formats, and no more round-tripping compatibility issues. But the level to which Google will deliver on this promise is presently a bit of a gray area. The updates to the web apps are available now, and the mobile app updates are out now on Android and coming soon on iOS.

I was able to get my borked PowerPoint presentation into Slides with a bit of wrangling, and it looks normal enough.

Same PowerPoint presentation in Google Slides, looking normal

But it's still not quite there for all use cases, of course. Google notes that if you want to collaborate seamlessly with others at the same time on Office documents, you must "simply convert the files to Docs, Sheets or Slides" first. That commenting functionality is available on the web only at the moment. And I suspect that if I tried hard enough, I could find issues in complex documents. Would my 500+ page books work in Google Docs? I'll find out.

Today, Microsoft doesn't offer a complete story. Office Mobile (and a standalone OneNote app) is available for free on Android handsets and looks and works much like Office Mobile on iPhone and Windows Phone. Which is to say not horribly, the strong point being that using the app to edit Office documents won't ruin the underlying structure and formatting in any way. Microsoft gets the round-tripping bit right.

On Android-based tablets, a full Office similar to that for the iPad is coming this year. It should be functionality identical, which is to say excellent. But it's not free: Users will need an Office 365 subscription of some kind to use this full-featured set of apps.

And for Chrome OS/Chromebook, there's Office Web Apps (or what's sort of called Office Online now). They're free and offer a very reasonable feature set. But they can't (yet?) be used offline, which is obviously a key bit of functionality on Chrome OS, which currently lives or dies by your Internet connection.

As it does with everything else, Google improves Chrome OS over time too, of course. And more and more, we're starting to see offline capabilities in the "apps" that Google offers to users through its Chrome Web Store. So that situation improves over time. Looked at from a higher level, however, a modern Chromebook presents a surprisingly familiar environment, one that looks and works a lot like Windows 7, with a Start menu-like apps launcher pop-up, a taskbar-like shelf, and even a tray notification area with clock, battery life and network connectivity widgets.

Chrome OS falls apart from a usability perspective in some ways of course, as this Windows 7-like cover sheen is pretty much the entire UI aside from the web browser and browser-based windows used by web apps and app-like utilities. But again, we need to look at this through the lens of the typical user, one who in many cases can do most of what they need to do on a smart phone or tablet. For these users, turning to a laptop to get some work done—perhaps write a term paper or make a presentation—requires a small mental shift, and they probably won't care or notice the difference between this and Windows.

Also, there are bits to Chrome OS that make the experience even more Windows like, though you currently have to really know what you're doing and be willing to make per-app configuration changes. For example, when you right-click on a web app shortcut in that Start menu-like launcher pop-up, you can choose whether that app will open as a regular or pinned browser tab (in Chrome), as a (floating) window, or as a maximized window.

The first two options open the app in a Chrome browser window, which is weird and feel constraining. But the latter two open the app in a separate, independent window that makes the whole environment feel more familiar and like Windows.

Likewise, any app that can be added to launcher can be pinned to the shelf (aka taskbar), which will likewise be more familiar for Windows users. And these two features combined—"normal" app windows and pinned app shortcuts—make the Office Online experience more natural. That is, unless you're a real power user, you might think you're using real Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote, even though you're "just" using a web app. (Ditto for OneDrive.)

So what are we to make of all this?

On one level, Microsoft bringing Office to Android and Chrome OS in this way makes it easier for the users of these services—Office/Office Online, OneDrive—to continue using them on other platforms. So you can mix and match between, say, a Windows PC, an Android tablet and an iPhone if you wanted. But more negatively, it also reduces the "stickiness" of Windows: When it comes time to replace that PC, many users will opt for something else, perhaps an inexpensive Chromebook. And that's just Microsoft's core user base. Remember, for many in that coming generation of productivity workers, Office and Windows is already not part of the conversation.

I still believe that "real" Office is important and viable. And stating that Office is technologically superior to the competition is arguably not even an opinion, but is rather a simple fact. But "good enough" may eventually win the day here, and though that was never good enough for Linux, it may be for Google. This is something I'll be watching very closely, on both Android and Chrome OS.

Discuss this Article 33

Microsoft's free web-based versions of Office blow Google's stuff out-of-the-water. Combined with the desktop versions, there really is no competition. People who use Google's for the most part are required to for work, school, etc. Given a choice, most would prefer Office.

This is the problem that Microsoft has to deal with if they want to remain relevant in the modern computing world though. Are the offerings of Office Mobile and Office on the desktop superior to what Google offers today? Sure, they are much better. However, as Paul pointed out, more and more people are becoming used to and OK with the "just good enough" offerings from Google and their office suite.

The one area that Google will always beat Microsoft in the office suite department is price in that what Google is free to everyone you simply need an account. Office has free offerings and more and more Windows 8 devices include Office to sweeten the deal of a new PC and/or Tablet but at some point if you want to upgrade or do real editing in the cloud you have to pay Microsoft whether it be $10 a month or a few hundred for a future version of office there is a cost. Google's offering will always be free and fully integrated into their platform.

People prefer cheap and functional to costly and expansive. Most folks especially the younger generations would rather get things done with the simple and inexpensive (free) solution rather than pay for a big expansive suite they would utilize much of it's functionality.

The future of Windows and Office is in the corporate environment only. Windows and Office are too big, complex and cumbersome for average users.

The problem is when MS tries to mutate Windows into something it isn't, namely a device OS, nobody likes it. Corporations hate the device centric stuff and it's still too bloated and complex for devices and consumers.

You're kidding, right? You click on Word, it starts, and you start typing. THAT is "too big, complex and cumbersome"? Seriously. Oh, good grief. If that's really true, then those people need to stop breeding.

I don't like these blanket statements that insinuate that absolutely "NOBODY likes it" I am certainly sure that I exist as a person, am valid and have feelings. You would not like it very much to be treated as though you were insignificant and did not matter much at all, or are you implying that is how "Big Bad Microsoft" treats you? For shame... =[

When will OEM's realize that they're able to build a low-cost cloud computing PC running on Windows Embedded for a much lower license fee? They can integrate cloud services like OneDrive and Office Online, and strip out the "unnecessary" stuff from Windows 8 like the desktop already. They can leverage their existing deployment skills for Windows 8, but not need to include any of the garbage because their license royalties become close to nil (Windows Embedded versions for "IoT" will cost zero dollars). Essentially, they can create a Microsoft-centric cloud PC similar to a Chromebook, but with Windows hardware compatibility.

This was more or less what RT was suppose to be I believe. That experiment pretty well failed for many reasons and among them are lack of applications.

I'm not so sure that Windows Embedded can offer the same experience and platform the Chromebook can offer. Google has built most their experience on the cloud and it's that experience that people want.

What continues to amaze me (and what should worry MS) is how easy people seem to accept Google's "good enough" solutions while rejecting (or ignoring?) Microsoft's less full blown but yet superior ones.
It seems that with the Google stuff the glass is always half full, while with MS the glass is always half empty. People always tend to focus on the negative ("what's missing") aspects of Microsoft's solutions.
And another part of the problem probably is that almost nowbody knows that there exists such a thing as the free online Office apps.

It depends on whether you can get it for free on tablets. By making people pay for Office, it is overkill for most people not in school or using it for work.

Microsoft should bring back Office for Home at a cheaper price, or its long discontinued products like Publisher, FrontPage, or Photo Editor for home and casual users.

Office survives despite superior free products like Works. People do want to merely use one document standard, which necessary if you want to archive them. Nonetheless, I often use a free program if I'm in rush and Office is not suitable or available.

I completely agree. I'm tired of this Google-driven oversimplification. Computers are getting "dumber" because tech companies are now focused on the consumer that does nothing but read the news. I am optimistic though. I think things will swing the other way again when people start realizing that they're less productive with tablets that have one button and can run only one half-baked app at a time in full screen. That is, once Google works its way through the mind of humanity in the way that IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, and I'd argue, most recently, the post-Jobs Apple did.

Paul: It seems to be that the collateral damage in this squeeze play is going to be, except for hard-core developer types, the Linux desktop and the take-up of the OpenDocument format (which Google Docs did to some degree and which now has disappeared in the current strategy). A plus for ODF is implementations such as LibreOffice that span the major platforms. Google has an alternative end-around, with the startling ubiquity of Android.

Timo47, I think you're spot on about this. I mention the OWA and OneDrive to people with an interchange problem and need to open a Microsoft Office document, and it is as if it can't be heard. There is an amazingly well-implanted confirmation bias against Microsoft ever doing anything innovative or useful.

I suppose the only thing they can do is soldier on and keep shipping and supporting good product.

I think I agree with you on this, Paul. The Office Suite, even the one without Outlook actually costs more than Windows 7 or 8, which is just ridiculous in a world full of free office replacement products. If Microsoft doesn't change that - and fast! - traditional MS Office will go the way of the dinosaur.

Paul,
The other persepctive is that, when Microsoft brings its whole set of services (Bing, Bing Addvertising, Bing Map - OMG why they did not bought Here, Office, Onenote, Outlook, and Onedrive,) with a Microsoft account that ties them all together, the logical next step is to offer a set of APIs that provides an alternative to Google play services, thus an independent app market on Android. With reasonable pricing and market management/incentives, this set of services will be easily adopted by OEMs who's using AOSP and developers alike (since there should be no much difference to develop apps only API calls will be adjusted, maybe even automatically). And when Microsoft throw in some exculsive games and applications, consumer will have no problem to install the extra app market to get the goodies. This move will allow MS truely eating into the android market share, without require anyone to choose between platforms, and as back end stuff progress, developers and all use VS to develop apps, and eventually deploy there android apps for MS app stores on other MS platforms.

TDRL: if MS can sucessfully own major marketshare on both front end (services, apps, market, hits, and whatnot) and back end (APIs, Devtools, Market), why would Microsoft care about the based OS is either close or open sourced? Hence the abstraction of platform from underline OSs. If MS play correctly the so call "sleeping with the Enemy" is more like "lay with the Enemy with a dagger hide behind the back". Only is MS can execute... oh, wait!

IMO, Google's software is much inferior to Microsoft's, and so is Apple's. The core perceptual problem for Microsoft is that in the last few years the company has made a public spectacle of itself by rushing around and throwing things together in a mad dash to copy Apple and even, sometimes, Google. Instead of dramatically moving ahead on the solid foundation of Win7, for instance--the best-selling version of Windows in Microsoft's history--the company took the very lame, "me, too" route of copying Apple's iPad directions with Win8. Bad, bad move, and exceedingly poor professional judgment in-house brought it all about.

So that's why Microsoft's software is often dramatically superior to Apple's or Google's but isn't generally perceived as such. All Microsoft need do is return to its customer base (gigantic) and start, once again, forging an independent direction for that market. Leave the short-term fad stuff to Apple and Google--Microsoft needs to return to making products (like Windows & Office) with a longevity measured in decades instead just a few years. People want better-than-Apple/Google from Microsoft--not "me, too" Microsoft products. Microsoft needs to forge its own, independent directions. That's what I and the rest of Microsoft's hundreds of millions of current & potential customers want to see!

Ironic: these folks used to live in Microsoft's long shadow; with Win8 Microsoft suddenly decided to live in their shadows, instead. I hope the recent house cleaning eradicated most or all of that kind of unjustifiable insecurity--it's poison for a company like Microsoft.

What exactly are wrong with ppl I mean I would prefer office over anything. What Microsoft should do is provide office starter by default baked in and strip features for a paid/pro version if users want them

All of the issues that MS is currently trying to contend with, as they try to push down from the full featured (desktop) versions of Windows and Office to the touch-friendly/mobile versions, will eventually bite Google as they try to cross the same divide. The difference is MS is trying to step down, while Google want to step up [which is waaaay harder to pull off successfully].
The added dilemma of not wanting to support Windows is any way means that Google has to get absolutely everything right before both the platform and the product will have any uptake. MS have avoided this issue by being willing to support other platforms as well. As competitive differentiation shrinks then integration becomes more and more important - use Apple products on an Apple platform device, Google products on a Google platform device or MS products on whichever platform is best for that device type.

I tried loading one of my presentations into Docs, it completely messed up the formatting and I could find no way of editing or playing back the presentation. It only offered the slides as single images.

Opening it opens it in a viewer, then clicking open in the viewer opening it again, from within the viewer, opens it in read-only, non-presentation mode in Docs. Only going back to the GDrive view and right clicking and opening "with Presentation" worked.

Even then the fonts were all messed up and the kerning was screwed up (letters in a single overlapping each other) and for some bizarre reason it decided that titles in all-caps should use a bigger capital letter for the first letter of each word. A disaster when that is supposed to be a registered trademark name!

And when it came to animations, it seemed to only recognize the first fist action for each element - most elements had around 6 different animation effects, many in parallel, some in serial.

The whole experience was a disaster. It is better than it used to be, Google have improved it, it has moved from a joke to just unusable with some promise for the future.

A Word document was a bit better, although the formatting was messed up, again, and things like cross-references weren't linked properly.

Google Docs is getting better, but using any moderaltely complex document shows just how much work Google have left to do.

"and they probably won't care or notice the difference between this and Windows." [...] "When it comes time to replace that PC, many users will opt for something else, perhaps an inexpensive Chromebook."
Until, they'll need peripherals compatibility with no driver available for their old driver or when the time comes when they're out of reach of a decent network which happens while on the road with no WiFi or 4G (or 3G) connexion to tether.

IMO Google's success is not solely built upon Google Search's and Gmail's strength, or the qualities of any other of its products for that matter, but more on the depreciated image Microsoft is suffering from.

Anyway, the biggest hurdle Google is going to face soon is precisely the one MS has been facing for quite some time now: the complexity of meeting the needs and tastes of a billion customers. There, I think Windows and Office are better armed (no pun intended) than are Chrome or Android. And let's not forget that you can already run Android apps on Windows 8; you just cannot run x86 applications and programs on former...

Furthermore, one shall keep in mind that Google's "(usually free) services", always have a cost: the privacy of one's data. As such, I'm still astonished to see companies and so many small businesses along with institutions of higher education using Gmail and Google Docs on a regular basis! It comes from an advertising firm and I can help but wonder why the vast majority doesn't seem to care even if they pretend otherwise when asked.

Anyway, I can easily see a time when this will have severe repercussion... And this already is/will be a deal breaker.

I keep believing that I have only really simple requirements for Office (Word/Docs in my case), but every single time I check cross-compatibility between actual Office and anything else it's a huge disappointment. I have tried everything, mostly because I am in a mixed PC / Mac environment and don't want to spend any money on Office for Mac, and because I would love to get a small, simple Chromebook (such as the HP Chromebook 11). But all other 'suites' miserably fail at just importing simple text with paragraphs, headings, bullet point lists and numbered lists (see, nothing fancy here...):
The 'new' Google Docs with included native MS Office support ist nothing but the old QuickOffice included which pretty much had the worst compatibility of all contenders.
Then there is Web Office which also pretty much kills any kind of formatting, in particular when round-tripping to actual Office.
Finally, the new iWork (beta, apparently) with web support is still a step back from the old iWork suite which is only available on the Mac (and therefore doesn't help me).
I understand that MS can't make a full-featured web version of office because they'd kill their Office sales. And I also know that MS Office with its millions of features is difficult to support from the outside.
But the only thing that I would currently entrust to any of the contenders for round-tripping is a simple, ASCII text file with no formatting whatsoever. Anything else is just a huge disappointment.

Don't know about Excel and Powerpoint. Excel may work better as long as the actual formulae are supported. Powerpoint on the other hand could be even worse as it's not just text as in Word but all kinds of other graphics and media too.

I don't think it much matters what other offerings are out there, or how many platforms Office is offered on. MS Office on the PC is going to rule the roost for the foreseeable future.

Consider many, many company set ups. Office isn't just about basic Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations. It is also about back end ODBC connections to SQL and other databases to automate and generate the data in many environments.

Free or cheap alternative office suites aren't going to replace MS Office unless they can accomplish the same tasks in Large and Medium size businesses.

As long as Large and Medium businesses continue to use Office, People at home are going to want to continue to use it because it's what they use at work and they need to be familiar with Office for work. Companies that have lesser requirements will likely stay with MS because there is already a large user base that knows Office and they won't need to train users to use another package.

Office apps are one area where the Enterprise really influences what is used more than the consumer. As long as advanced ODBC type connections are important to them and not well supported on other suites, people will always prefer to use what they have at the office and what they are familiar with.

MS needs to undercut the competition now! Slash the price of Office 365 to $50 a year. Then break it down to a monthly cost for users. People love low numbers when it comes to money. When they see that they can use real office for just over $4 a month they will buy in. They will look at google and say but I can have all the bells and whistles for X. Now's the time MS don't wait until it's too late. I assume they know this, free and cheap is what Americans crave in the over priced world we live in.

For business use, Google Docs and Office 365 have different strengths and weaknesses. I have maintained over the years that Google started with a huge lead in third-party integrations... something that used to be Microsoft's big strength. This still holds true as Google is steadily expanding third-party integrations while Office 365 seems content to stand alone.

One key thing that those looking through the "Microsoft Lens" tend to overlook is many users can't stand overly complicated UIs, especially business users. To people who have diligently used Office products for hours a day through the years, the Office UI may seem incredibly intuitive and it may boggle the mind as to how other people could view it as frustratingly obtuse. In reality, like Windows 8, the standard Microsoft UI has gone downhill from the glory days as far as user perception. Thus, I would speculate that the next ten years of software will be less about who is technologically superior and more about productivity in various UIs. If we look at the UIs 12 year olds are using now, do we really think they will appreciate the "ribbon" interface and "live tiles" when they enter the workforce? Some may disagree, but I imagine they won't.

MS Office is funny one. I say that because you've got essentially four products — Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook — bundled together. At least on the version I'm using.

Outlook is of the least use to me — I much prefer to use GMail. Then again, an email client is useful if you're offline a lot. But the time spent offline these days is getting less and less.

Word is good for complex reports with lots of cross-referencing, numbered headings and the like. For most tasks, however, it's overkill. For page layout it's a pain-up-the-arse. Therefore for most tasks I use Notepad ++ or InDesign. Admittedly I'm not typical. But web-based word processors are a serious threat, especially if they can get to the level of something like Office 2003. I must admit though, the Find & Replace feature on Word is *really* good.

Excel is irreplaceable. It has no real competition. Never use it myself, but I know a lot of people can't live without it.

PowerPoint I don't really need … I'm just as happy to use Google Presentation or Keynote. Mind you, I'm one of those considerate presenters who makes a few simple, visual slides, as opposed to squeezing ten graphs and a huge flowchart on a page.

If I was in charge of purchasing, I'd just buy Office for the people who really need it and get everyone else to use web-based office tools.

They do blow Google's out of the water... and they don't. Microsoft seem to not include the most basic of features in their web offerings. For example :

* The web excel doesn't highlight cells referenced in a formula. If you have long complicated formulas involving lots of cells this is really inconvenient. Google's does this.
* The web word doesn't allow you to add an auto-generated table of contents. Google's does this.

It seems to me that Microsoft's offering seems to be crippled in areas that would make you still fall back to the desktop version whilst Google makes sure these are available.

What is Google up to? Let's revisit a little history. When Msft recently talked up the porting of its most recent version of Office it had no problems mentioning Apple and Office on Apple at the announcement. Msft has a habit of NOT mentioning the names of corporate competitors in certain scenarios. Google is simply returning the favor by not mentioning Msft by name. This is not new for Msft. Hopefully the new admin at Msft can recognize the world has changed from the time that they set the rules and the standards. They are no longer the only game in town.

It is time for Microsoft to do what it does best and eliminate the parts that don't fit. Really Bing should be sold off to Yahoo and offered as an option along with Google search. '
Windows needs to be the UBER platform under which others can run. What if Windows could run Android or IOS native programs within separate windows under Windows 9? How about giving some XP die hards an opportunity to run their XP native apps in a window too. There is enough memory out there for manufacturers to build in a place to run some of this stuff in memory and give users the flexibility of using their favorite applications. It it really that hard?

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